If you are convicted of a Pennsylvania DUI, you will face a number of severe penalties that will effect the rest of your life.  Having the right DUI attorney at your side can make all the difference in protecting your rights and freedom.  That is why we encourage you to to investigate and spend the time to find the best DUI lawyer in Pennsylvania.  Here are some clues to help you evaluate the lawyers you meet:

1. How much Advanced DUI Training does this lawyer attend?
2. Is this attorney Board Certified in DUI Law?
3. Does this lawyer take DUI Cases to Trial?

In this post we examine the fourth clue you can use in your search for the best DUI attorney in PA: DUI Lectures Presented.

There is a lot of law and science that isn’t taught in law school.  Most of the specialization and technical aspects in a field like DUI is learned through continuing education seminars.  These seminars are highly intensive and taught by preeminent experts in DUI law.  I am proud to have been invited to lecture at a number of highly technical DUI seminars around the country.  I have lectured on advanced DUI topics in front of defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges and police officers.

Some of my recent DUI lectures in 2010 alone include:

DUI Lectures

• instructed at the Alabama Criminal Defense Lawyer’s annual “Advanced DUI Topics” seminar on Blood, Urine and other analytical chemistry topics
• instructed at the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers annual DUI Seminar
• instructed at the South Carolina Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers “The Third Annual Reese Joye Memorial DUI Defense Seminar”
• instructed at the American Chemical Society course by Dr. Lee Polite, BA, MBA, PhD and Harold McNair, PhD “Forensic Applications of Chromatography (GC/HPLC) and Mass Spectrometry: Headspace Gas Chromatography with Flame Ionization Detector and Mass Spectrometry and High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (a lecture laboratory course)”
• instructed at orivate in-house training for Trichter & Murphy. PC entitled “How an Analytical Chemist Can be the Accused’s Best Friend Lessons 1-5”
• instructed at the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association “Stuart Kinard Memorial Advance DWI Seminar” (.75 hours of lecture and 12 hours of training)
• instructed at the “Just Because You are an Expert…Doesn’t Make You Interesting” small group work shop seminar with Dr. Paul Homoly, CSP (twice)
• instructed at the California Association for Criminal Justice annual “Rules of the Road Seminar”-Palm Springs, CA
• instructed at the American Chemical Society Fall 2010 National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society the Title for the Session was: “The Lack of Legal and Forensic Suitability of Enzymatic Assaying for Blood Alcohol Concentrations in Prosecutions of Alleged Drunk Drivers” and Title for the presentation is: “Enzymatic assaying: The Indirect Measurement that is Non-specific to Ethanol that is Being Misapplied from the Clinical World into the Forensic Arena”
• instructed at the Platt and Associates seminar entitled “An Overview of the NHTSA/IACP Drug Recognition and Evaluation Course” 2 blocks of instruction “In the Defense of the Officer: Epistemology” and “An Introduction to Gas Chromatography: How an Analytical Chemist Can Be Your Best Friend”
• instructed at the Lorman Education Services teleconference “Pennsylvania DUI Case Law Update: A Massive Paradigm Shift-The Post Melendez-Diaz and Post-Chase World”
• instructed at the IDS Consulting Inc’s seminar “Behind the Secrets of Highway Drug Interdiction”
• instructed at the American Chemical Society course by Dr. Lee Polite, BA, MBA, PhD and Harold McNair, PhD “Forensic Applications of Chromatography (GC/HPLC) and Mass Spectrometry: Headspace Gas Chromatography with Flame Ionization Detector and Mass Spectrometry and High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (a lecture laboratory course)”
• instructed at the Impaired Driving Specialists’ seminar “NHTSA’s Standardized Field Sobriety Testing Practitioner “
• instructed at the an approved PACLE seminar entitled “The Defense is the Science and Science is the Truth, The Truth About Forensic Science: An Introduction to Method Validation” with Janine Arvisu
• instructed at the North Carolina Advocates for Justice “Advanced DWI Seminar” entitled “If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It): Understanding, Discovering and Presenting Errors in Blood Testing”
• instructed at the Connecticut State Public Defender’s Conference on “Short Course on Blood Toxicology” and “Drug DUI cases – Can they be Defended?”
• instructed at The 3rd Annual TheMcShaneFirm.com lecture series on Defending the Citizen Accused of a DUI by the Government 2010 topic “Introduction to Breath Testing” with Mary McMurray

That’s 14 different states.  As you can see, these are highly technical seminars presented alongside other notable DUI attorneys and even to scientists doing research in the field.  I suggest that to do that you need to have a very high level of understanding and a grasp of the technical concepts and information involved.  Plus, you need to be able to take the complicated and hyper-technical and reduce it down to the understandable, which is no easy task.

Keep this piece of advice handy because it will help you distinguish the best PA DUI attorneys from the novices.

Justin McShane

PA DUI attorney Justin J. McShane is the President/CEO of The McShane Firm, LLC - Pennsylvania's top criminal law and DUI law firm. He is the highest rated DUI attorney in PA as rated by Avvo.com. Justin McShane is a double Board certified attorney. He is the first and so far the only Pennsylvania attorney to achieve American Bar Association recognized board certification in DUI defense from the National College for DUI Defense, Inc. He is also a Board Certified Criminal Trial Advocate by the National Board of Trial Advocacy, a Pennsylvania Supreme Court Approved Agency.